Vigil and Trujillo then read Scott his Miranda rights a second time. This time the detectives asked Scott what his cousin Edward Cole had said back in 1979.

Scott had used Cole and Garcia as his alibi. He had said he was with them at 5 p.m., Oct. 25, 1979. While he admitted living five blocks from the church in 1979 and fitting the description of the suspect in that case he asked for an attorney and stopped talking.

The next day, Scott sent a message to Deputy Chief John Radar. When Radner came, he gave him Trujillo’s business card and asked him to call the homicide sergeant.

“‘It’s very important. It has to do with a murder case,'” Scott told Radar.

Vigil and Trujillo took Scott to Denver police headquarters. After another Miranda warning, Scott said in a videotaped recording that what “I’m about to say will cause me to lose my freedom.”

Scott said he was walking two Dobermans near the church on Oct. 25, 1979 when he noticed that a side door of the church was partially open. He tied the dogs outside and entered the church hoping to find money, possibly in the collection plate.

He walked down the stairs and found only empty classrooms. He walked back upstairs and found a young woman on her knees praying in front of the altar. He saw the woman’s purse on a pew nearby, he claimed.

The woman saw him and grabbed his arm, he claimed. A tussle ensued over the purse. The woman started screaming for help and tried to pull away. Scott admitted he beat the woman several times in the head and chest and she fell to the floor. He added that he may have hit her with an object.

Scott then said he ran out the same side door he had entered.

When the detectives asked Scott if he had raped the woman, Scott denied it at first. As the detectives continued questioning him, however, he acknowledged that “it was a good possibility because he would take advantage of an opportunity,” a court record says.

He added that he possibly choked her when she was standing and then again when she was on the floor.

Vigil and Trujillo showed Scott crime scene photographs and Scott pointed out where his struggle with Martha had taken place.

But Scott couldn’t bring himself to explain why the victim’s clothing was torn and strewn about the floor.

When the detectives asked him about speaking with Martha outside the church, he denied doing so.

After he returned home he changed his clothes in case witnesses had seen him and later washed blood off his clothing. The blood may have been the victims or his own, he acknowledged. He washed blood off his leather jacket as well.

He said he possibly cut his hand while he was hitting Martha.

“It wasn’t my intention to kill her,” Scott told the detectives. He said he had never killed anyone before and didn’t know that Martha had died.

The Denver District Attorney’s office filed first-degree murder charges against Scott on Nov. 5, 2007, but when he was asked to waive any protection he might have under an “Interstate Agreement on Detainers,” Scott declined to do so.

Concerned about possible legal ramifications under an “anti-shuttling” rule, the district attorney’s office dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning that they could be refiled later.

On June 6, 2008, Denver District Judge Anne Marie Mansfield sentenced Scott to 40 years in prison as part of a plea bargain in which five charges were dismissed including kidnapping and being an habitual criminal for his guilty plea to an aggravated first degree sexual assault.

The sentence was to be served concurrently with the New York term, meaning that Scott is eligible for parole in the New York and Denver sex assault cases in 2020, when he is 58.

Prosecutors refiled a murder charge against Scott, now 52, on Oct. 23, 2013, and again brought him to Denver from New York.

The charges against him include first degree murder, two counts of felony murder, and five sentence enhancement charges for committing a violent crime causing death.

This is well laid out story, yet a few things are missing. What happened to Cole and what is the context for Cole’s life? What were the outcomes for the 2013 set of charges?

Meanwhile, the woman who waved down the truck drivers (and the truck drivers) are heroic for their roles in this story. I hope we start to look at our legal and judicial to see why life sentences are being ended early and why parole is being offered to repeat offenders like this. I hope we also start looking at our responsibility to improve mental health systems to increase resources for troubled people. Let us make sure that this story is not in vain.

Side note:
There are a fair number of typos worth correcting including:
Page 1: “the man was about 5-feet-10” and “The evening he took a walk to the Safeway store on 38th Avenue.”
Page 4: “It was about 6 p.m. Cole and Scott walked home together.” and “Cole quoted Scott as saying a the time.”

Steve

Interesting story, but marred by poor/sloppy writing.

“…praying in front of the alter.”

Thanks for mentioning the anti-shuffling rule. Since you introduced the phrase, care to explain what it means?

Mike

Steve, it is called goggle, use it.

dan

agree. great story, poor writing. repeatedly spelled ‘alter’ versus ‘altar’. jumped from a paragraph about the girl being unconscious to the coroner’s report without ever telling us she died.

Ryan

Interesting and very sad story although somewhat hard to make sense of. Yet again, Mr. Mitchell produces an article with over complicated sentences, hypocrisies, and repeating and/or useless information. This seems to be a common thing with his articles. Does anyone edit them?

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.